Covering up hickeys with thick makeup and pretending to be mad/throwing coins into empty concrete/you saying I love you in your sleep.

Were you a man, or a cartoon dog, or a cloud with a face, and howcould I believe in any flaming mystery?

Rewind/fast forward/turn it off.Toss the sheets away and then tuck myself in again.

Shiver sweat sweat sweat—

I read in dreams we communicate with God.I guess my god is you: wearing a mascara-stained yellow towel/

stern-faced, trying to parallel park/spreading avocado on a bagel and commanding me to crunch.

I would bite a little harder now or I would smear it on your face and lick and lick and

after all, Freud said it’s all about sex, but don’t worry.There will be time for that—

I will wear a schoolgirl skirt and burn on the nurse’s cot, beggingto press you underneath my tongue.

Kara Lewis is a poet, writer, and editor who lives in Kansas City, Missouri. Her poems have appeared in Number One Magazine and Plainsongs. She is the recipient of the John Mark Eberhart Memorial Award, granted by the University of Missouri-Kansas City Creative Writing Program for a collection of poetry. She has also widely published her journalism, personal essays, and feminist criticism.